Down To Earth

Editorial. Sunita
Narain.I.IXV.XV

India’s climate
strategy needs
revision

by Sunita
Narain

Climate change negotiations are by now
predictable. The already-industrialised come to
each conference of the parties (COP) with a clear
game plan, that is, to erase their contribution to
the emissions already present in the atmosphere,
thereby effectively remove the differentiation
between their responsibility and that of the rest
of the world to act. This would rewrite the 1992
convention on climate change and let them evade
the obligation to provide funds and technology for
action in the developing world. The problem is
that developing countries do not come with an
equally clear plan or proactive position. As a
result, in each meeting, including the recently
concluded COP20 at Lima, developing countries
lose. The terms of the agreement change
progressively and deliberately against the poor
and the Planet.

Indian negotiators believe they can
maintain the status quo and delay any new
agreement, but as climate negotiations show, this
tactic does not work. We block but the rich
countries shove and the ground slips from under
our feet. We need to revise our
strategy.

For instance, India went to the Lima
COP all guns blazing to oppose ex-ante review of
mitigation commitments. It has been decided that
all countries will declare their Intended
Nationally Determined Contributions
(INDCs)—how much emissions they will cut,
why and when. The ex-ante review is to measure and
review whether a country has met its target. It is
also to see if the sum of these actions is
sufficient to keep the world below the guardrail
of 2°C increase in temperature. If not, then
to decide on further action.

Why did India oppose this? Because
when the idea was first proposed at the Copenhagen
conference in 2009, it was definitely
unacceptable. The proposal was to move the world
from setting mandatory carbon dioxide reduction
targets to voluntary action. Under the target
approach, the world would decide on the carbon
budget—how much can it emit and still stay
below 2°C rise—and then set targets for
each country, based on past contributions to
greenhouse gases. Under the voluntary approach,
countries would decide how much emission they
would (or could) cut. These commitments would be
ex-ante reviewed.

India rightly fought the obliteration
of the principle of differentiation, which meant
targets would be based on equity and past
responsibility. The review was also seen as a
dilution of national
sovereignty.image.

But that was the past. Since then
India has agreed that the post-2020 climate
agreement is not just applicable to all countries,
but that all will take voluntary mitigation
commitments (called contributions) which will be
domestic actions. So, it has already tacitly
agreed to dilute the principle of differentiation.
The only peg it is hanging its hopes on is that
all this action will be done under the principles
of the convention, which inscribe equity. But in
this new regime, India has to be proactive and
nimble to operationalise the principle of
equity.

If it wanted to do this, India could
have proposed to hold the rich accountable for
their commitments through the ex-ante review. In
this way, each country’s domestic
contribution would include an equity metrics of
its per capita emissions and the carbon space it
will occupy. This contribution and subsequent
action would be reviewed before the post-2020
climate change agreement is signed so that targets
can be revised to take into account ambition and
fairness. This way we not only keep the world
safe, but also ensure that each country’s
actions are based on rightly shared common
atmosphere.

Instead at COP20, India decided to
stand with China, which has a definite interest in
opposing the ex-ante review because it aims at
peaking its emissions by 2030. China has already
dumped us and moved on. Under an agreement with
the US, it has agreed to match its emissions with
that of the US at a massive 12 tonnes per capita
per year in 2030. The two big polluters will
appropriate the bulk of the carbon space, leaving
nothing for the growth of the rest of the
developing world.

In the Lima Call for Action, there is
no provision for ex-ante review. Now countries
will provide information about how their INDCs
will be fair and ambitious, but in light of
national circumstances. We have no mechanism to
ensure that the commitments by the rich countries
are equitable, and not crippled by what countries
can do. In the final communiqué in Lima,
even the basic principle of equity—common
but differentiated responsibility and respective
capabilities (CBDR)—has been fatally
twisted. Now it says CBDR will be “in light
of different national circumstances”.
Effectively, this means the US can say it cannot
do more because its Congress will not pass
legislation. It has legalised lack of ambition or
inequity of action. The rest can follow this
course as well.

We can call this a “win”
for developing countries or for our heating
Planet, only if we are
delusional.